Lately  there has been a resurgence in the discussion over using design for the greater good. From using design principles at the boardroom table, to solving third world problems with better interaction design.  Who are we really kidding!

While the concepts are very noble and I can see how it can be done. There really needs to be a dose of reality in all this.

The overriding principle is that we can change the world through design. We do this by influencing everything we design.  Such that we are producing high quality products that take into account sustainability, inclusivity and still focus on the business and audiences at hand.

Yes I know this isn’t impossible and is a great idea.

Still let’s just stop and think about this.   I don’t know about you, but I don’t think the scope of the clients I deal with day to day are really going to have any influence on a large scale.

Sure I work hard and consider all the angles that I can for my clients.   But realistically their budgets and scope of their business just doesn’t allow for much alurtistic design.

Now I would just love to follow these outstanding principles if the opportunity arises.

I  would also love to see a dose of realism thrown into this mix.   It’s all very well and good, for a group of luminaries working on top end projects to spout on about these principles.  Frankly I don’t believe the web sites, we are all designing and building on a daily basis, here at the other end of the specrum are going to make any real difference.

What do you think, can our design make a difference anymore?  Can we change the world one design at a time.

Some of you may not know this, I come from a formal science background, I trained as a scientist.  However, I don’t consider myself to be one, by any stretch of the imagination. I feel more at home in the design space.

Still all that background in the science arena has allowed me to apply it to the area of User Experience design. A guess it’s like a Science of UX Design.

To often we say that the area of User Experience is not so much a science but an art. Yes this is true. However it’s also a little wrong. UX Design is very much a science, or should be. As we are applying the basis of the scientific method to it.

To understand this you have to understand a little about backbone of science (science peeps you can go make a coffee now) and the scientific method.

Science and the Art of Observation

In science you are taught from day one to question. Yes question everything. This questioning helps you think creativity, build on previous ideas, observe, experiment and document. The key is to take nothing on face value. You are always asking , “nice, but show me the evidence..”.

Everything, you see, must come with evidence to support it. Any hypothesis has to have some evidence. And even then it’s going to have to be collaborated evidence so it can graduate to a theory.

You see a theory is the best you can get, its the ultimate statement.  Still you have to remember that a theory is not written in stone, it’s still open to change.  It should still be questioned, if the evidence stacks up against it.

A theory is just in a holding status, as the series of rules or an explanation of how something works as far as we know. The key here is the bit “as far as we know”.   At any time it can to shot down and a new theory can replace it.  Often the new theory is build upon the bones of the old theory, but not all the time, something a complete change of viewpoint is required.

Scientific Method

The important part in science in the use of the Scientific Method. The basis of the scientific method is a way to use the principles of scientific inquiry.  It’s the cycle of taking a hypotheses, testing it , analysing the results and then iterating,

The key to the scientific method is the use of the researchers intelligence, imagination, and creativity; its not like baking a cake,  there is no quick recipe to follow.  A bit like UX design in a way.

If we compare the two, the scientific method and UX design

UX Design verses Scientific Method

• Scientific Method:

  1. Define a question or problem,
  2. Gather information or observe,
  3. Form a hypothesis,
  4. Experiment and test,
  5. Analyse output,
  6. Interpret results (form new hypothesis),
  7. Document and publish,
  8. Peer review

• UX Design:

  1. Define a question or problem,
  2. Observe and research,
  3. Develop a design,
  4. User test and prototype,
  5. Analyse and interpret results,
  6. Document,
  7. Implement

As you can see they are very similar. All we are lacking is the formation of the initial hypothesis.

Science isn’t Creative?

Okay I can guess you are nodding your heads now as you see the comparison. However it’s not that simple is it?

Yes true design has all these principles and rules that can be applied. Same with UX design there are a number of for an interface design and psychological based principle that we can apply.   These rules are like the foundation theorems in science.

However design has that creative element. The innovative spark, the creation of something based on previous experience and the environment around us. Something that is gauged as being outstanding by our community. The process of that creativity and what it is can be always up for debate. However the key here is that design is a creative process not an analytical one.

And science isn’t!? …  Hang on let’s stop and think for a moment.

Okay design stimulates the senses and it’s this stimulation that we often use to measure creativity by.

However in science you still get that moment of innovation, the moment of thinking outside the square, the  moment of creativity, it’s just it’s not applied often to something that is traditionally thought of being creative. 

Looking at a physics equation a new way, or experimenting with a variations in compounds are the sexy creative elements but they can be creative in there approaches.

So yes science is creative.  Just not sexy creative, as is commonly known.

Science is Design

In UX design we prototype and experiment, observe the results, iterate and modify the prototypes using the test results and previous designs to find the new killer design. As you can see above, this is so close to the iterative experimental process of scientific method  it’s a little frightening. 

Mind you lets just stop for moment again.  If you think about it, it’s not surprising,  given that many of the principles of UX design are stolen from engineering which in turn stole them from basis of the scientific method.

So in reality UX design is a Science.  And maybe even Science is just Design.

Now tell me do you think UX design is more a science or do you still think its going with the gut and is an art form?

Creativity is a strange beast. Often creativity is blocking us, running away.  We often talk about it, discuss it at length and even say it can be learned.  Sometimes it’s even hard to find that creative spark.  However what is creativity.   In reality creativity is a hard thing to define as a  specific reproducible item.

Doesn’t help that creativity is different things to different people.

You see creativity can be related to the newer western principle of making products, building things for a purpose, the expression of scientific or technological innovation.  Where as in older cultures, there has always been an undertone for creativity being more for personal fulfilment, private goal setting, the taking of an inner journey.

Sure there are definitions of creativity all over the place. This still doesn’t help, as the biochemical, physiological and psychological process of creativity is still something of a mystery to which we only have fragments.

What is Creativity

What we do know is that the moment of creativity is often  accompanied with a heightened state of consciousness.

Things appear to be more vibrant, more alive, colours are vivid, sounds more pure,  it’s like a sensory overload.  Others have described this inspirational moment as a peroid of loss of control, a trance like, muse controlled, dreamlike state.

Interestingly Carl Jung (that psychologist guy) segmented these two states into:

• “a state of emotional high tension” and;
• “a state of dream-like contemplation”.

His idea is that creativity is the release of emotional tension. Especially the tension, built up over time,  coming from the hard work of the creative process.  Well I know we can all relate to that idea.

Later on Damasio (a neurologist) leveraged off Jung’s work in looking at emotions, creativity and consciousness.  Damasio theorised self-awareness  was a very important component of the creative process.  The ability for your mind to make it’s own patterns, designs without reference to previous experience or knowledge. This will be of a particular interest later.

Creative excitement of the artist at her easel or the scientist in the lab comes as close to the ideal of fulfilment that we all hope to, and so rarely do, achieve – Mihaly Csikszentmihalhyi

More recently research has indicated that the two different states of consciousness, correspond to two different brain states:

• Enhanced consciousness is associated with increased beta waves.
• Dreamlike state is associated with  alpha waves.

This supports the relevant  experiences of clarity and dream-states that have been reported. Nothing new really, just a documented physiological response.

It’s also been suggested that creativity is similar  to a spiritual experience, a type of receptive non-egoist cognition.  The type of experience where you just trust in a state higher than you to provide the final solution.  Something like a complete trust in a greater god-like power.

Personal and Group Creative Processes

Still creativity is not just about the creative individual either.

Yes, true, you do get the creative star. The person that is going to produce that single creative masterpiece.  However creativity can also be a group process, requiring the dynamic of the group to foster the creative process.

The inclination to work in one process or the other really just comes down to a personal choice, the processes, the environment, social dynamics and the expected outcomes.

You tend to find that  teams that don’t allow for any creativity, that focus on the total needs of the team at the costs above everything else with not have strong creative outcomes.  This can mainly be seen as a stifling of the creative spark.   The removal of the lack of self may be a very large contributing factor here.

Still you can have creative people in the team, and yes they will create, if you let them. Even though they have become faceless in the team itself. It’s matter of fostering the belief in self.

It’s their individual presence and creative ability in the team that produces the creative outcome.  It’s their being able to express their sense of self that seems to promote the creative process.

Something to think about in UX teams.  Even in a team it’s still about the person, and promoting personal creativity.

Original  Creative Process

Something we tend to forget is that the creativity is about being original, creating the new. The magic of producing something from nothing.  Or maybe even reshaping an old idea into something new from a different angle.

Newness and Uniqueness

The aspect of what is original is really relative to the individual.   You may consider an idea new to yourself, but your peers may consider it to be old and an estabilished concept.   Interestingly this relative creativity even has a series of terms associated with it.

Margaret Boden, categorised relative original creative ideas as:

• P-creativity (psychological creativity)  - new or novel ideas only from the mind of the individual concerned.
• H-creativity (historical creativity) – known to be new or novel to the whole of human history.

So if you produce an idea that is new to you, you are being p-creative.  However if the idea is new to society then it is h-creative or historically creative.

This does bring us to a question of what is unique and what is new.   Something can be new to generation, new to an individual, but its not an absolute. Historically it is not new.   Where as something being unique is the first of it’s kind, without parallel or comparison to anything else ever.

So maybe true creativity maybe expressed in uniqueness.

The issue is that in today’s world it is hard to be truly unique in ones creativity. We are often unconsciously referencing to our memories, experiences and influences all the time.  With the information age – the amount of information that we are exposed to is without doubt a magnitude larger than our predecessors even 20 years ago.

We no long have the benefit of living in the world of our predecessors; left to just receive a trickle  from the rest of the world of the changes, new information and influences around them.  In the past they had the luxury that they could create with a distinct reduction from  the taint of the world around them.

Produce or Create

Following on from this is the question can something artificial, like a computer, be creative.   What is it that makes anything creative.  Does some that is going to be creative need a state of consciousness to capture the unique ideas.

This could be debated here till the cows come home. So let’s not, eh.

Maybe its just the  lack of consciousness that is stopping the creative process with machines, provide consciousness and you have creativity.

Then again if we are borrowing from our previous experience and knowledge are we being really creative.  Maybe we are just being machine-like and producing a design, instead of creating a design.  Something to think on when you do your next UX project.

It could just be the use of the logical process verse the gut instinct to produce the  creative process.  Semantics, yes, but still very important.

Meaningful  Creative Process

Now creativity without a cause, without meaning, is often seen as pointless, soulless.

The meaning can be a personal thing, for the creator, or even a commercial motivation.  Still at the end of the process there has to be a reason, a goal, a meaning behind it all.

It is this meaning  that allows us to have a sense of achievement when we complete a creative process.

In a way, one only becomes creative if there is understanding and meaning of the creative product.   If the product has no understanding or meaning, then the creativity can’t be seen and understood by others.  It follows then to others it’s not creative, it’s just product of a process.

UX and Creativity

With all this talk on creativity and what it is  - are we really being all that creative in the User Experience process? Or are we just applying the outcome of the design (user) research, web strategy and general design principles to the user interface design.   Or are we stepping beyond this and making something new, unique and innovative?

Sometimes I question if we are being as creative as we could be, has business and commercial constraints weakened our grasp on creativity?

Remember:

To be creative an idea must be usable and actionable – Teresa Amabile

Still what is creativity to you?  Do you think it can be learned, studied and mastered; or is it something more innate?

I was talking to the local UPA Perth chapter (in formation) about aspects of UX visualisation.  It was an interesting topic that brought up a good number of discussion points.

One point was on the design process. The way we design.  The way that we just don’t allow ourselves time to fail at the design.  Or if we do, it is hidden in the back room so we can appear to be “magical design wizards” that produce the perfect product, interface design, IA or the like.

Great!  Nice idea if you want to really keep this air of the designer being someone “mysterious and magical”.   Someone that can just disappear for a few hours and suddenly they have the final product.

Stop the Myth

We really have to stop this process.

You know how no-one understands design.  They don’t value design. They just don’t get how long it takes to design something.  They just don’t get the process. They just don’t understand the principles of the design.

Well we are to blame!  We are the problem.   We have build the wall between ourselves and our clients.   We have build the prissy pedestal that we are standing on.

For to long we have been taking the design process and putting it behind closed doors where only a few audience members, team members and select client liaisons get to see behind the “Wizard of Oz” curtain from time to time.

We should go beyond just explaining the design process to the client, and flashing around a few final concepts when we need signoff.  We should  involve them. Even if it’s just in a small way. If we did this some of the issues we have would start to disappear.

Education is Important

It’s all about education. Educating the client’s decision makers, and even your team.

It’s about taking down the wall and showing your process.  Discussing and explaining with your client the design process as you step through it.  Not just showing the final stages of each process either, the steps along the way, warts and all.

Yes, that’s right,  show them the rough sketches, the wireframes that have failed, the concept storyboards and mockup concepts that you have rejected.   It’s simple, explain why these designs have failed and been rejected.   Involve the client in the process.

Become human, not a design mage or a mindless web design monkey.

You may say, “but the client doesn’t want to see all the design process” .

Are you really sure. Most people, I find, are even just a little bit  envious of us.  They would love to help out in the design process.  They want to be us.

Key is to just be patient with them, your clients are a design newbie, be understanding but firm, after all they are paying your because you are “the designer”.  It’s a balancing act, don’t pester them with details all the time. Still in your progress meetings, show the design output. Show the progression towards the final concept.

Stop Perfection, Make Mistakes

If you are looking at me strangely by now, then I can tell that you tend not to really design in the traditional way, with multiple iterations of a design leading to the final outcome.

Whether it be sketching with pencil and paper, in a wireframing application or just using Photoshop, you should be cycling through a series of design concepts before you decide on the final product.

Yes you could say that there is all this user research that we have and it’s all you need to build the design.   Well I agree, but I also disagree.

Granted you do have an outline a specification framework, restrictions on the design from the user research. Still there will often be hundreds of ways you can approach the issues and develop the design.

Even with applying the standard design principles on top of the user research findings, you should still have a good deal of approaches you can take.

If can only see one approach, maybe you need to take a fresh look at the problem, from a different view point.

Protosketch it

Like a good product design, there will be failures in a UX design.

However these failures are important. They give us ideas, they allow us to get frustrated, to look beyond the everyday and find that special design the client is really looking for.

Failure in designing allows you to iterate the design.  They allow us to discount designs and to get inspired with new alternatives  from the failures. Gradually over time, you will get less and less new concepts and start to discount more and more.  Resulting in the final concept.

It’s a simple process.  Just sketch out a concept, get others feedback, throw around some ideas.   It’s like you are prototyping the base concept sketch. Iterate it, adding and removing concepts.

Maybe  we should call it protosketching.

Involve the client, involve your peers, friends, team colleagues or maybe do a peer review.

Just work down that process of refinement to the final design.  Now I’m not talking an agile process here, I’m talking about something that happens the first moment you put pencil to paper in the sketching process be it analogue or digital.

Remember design is not a robotic process, it’s a creative process.

I often find my best designs are the ones I don’t think about, the ones I mull over for days looking for inspiration from things all around me.  Doing a little sketching, drawing, letting my mind wander.  In case you ask, I only work with clients that know they will get a good result if they don’t push the process, sure this helps as well.

Fail or Don’t Design

Now in my mind if you are not failing at your design, well you are not designing.   You are just processing an analysis, and producing one possible outcome.  Maybe you should stop and think.   Are you doing the right thing by your client.   Does your client really just want a second rate concept.

If you like producing second rate designs, do us all a favour, stop.  Just stop designing, the world has enough crap designs.

If you are failing.  Well that’s great, design and fail away.  God speed to you.

Rating:

4.5

As I’m designing forms I don’t usually have an issue making then usable or accessible within the limits of the clients budget.

However taking the form to the next level technically can sometimes be an issue. This is exactly what Fancy Form Design by Jina Bolton, Tim Connell and Derek Featherstone is all about, designing and building those great forms on the web.

When I first purchased this book (yes I do purchase my books, they aren’t usually review freebies) I was a little skeptical as to whether this book would have any content in it that would be relevant to me. This is an issue that I’m running into more and more these days.

I was surprised. I was expecting a dry developer focused book on form design. It is not. This is a good book, well worth the 4-5 hour read. I found that it wasn’t just one of those books you read once either, it’s also a great reference book.

This book is focused on the front end developer or back end developer that wants to enhance their forms. Even a UX designer like me with hands on skills will get something from this book.

While I was reading this book I was constantly thinking, well that’s great, but what about this accessibility or usability issue – yeah I can’t help it. But you know not a one or two paragraphs later I was presented with the solution or consideration for those issues. It’s great to see a practical book that is on same page as I am.

The Content

Interestingly the book layout parallels the way in which you design and develop an online form. The book itself walks you through a centralised case study for the development of a series of forms. Fancy Form Design is a book very heavy in code and visual examples as well, which makes it a very useful future reference tool.

The first section of the book deals with the planning phase of development, looking at the types of form elements, and the ways they are presently being  enhanced on the web. It also looks at the usual competitive analysis process. Moving on to my favourite part the interaction design of the form, now it doesn’t spend a lot of time in this area as there are some good books on the market already that handle this area in detail.  There is a bit of a discussion on task flows, paper prototyping and wireframing (which I personally think we can do without).

The form design section of the book walks through the usual suspects, of the grid, typography, the use of colour and micro imagery to enhance a form’s presentation. This section is about the graphical design only. It’s the next section that walks you through the building of the form.

You then get to the bones of the matter, the development of the form structure. There are a good series of examples here on how to build a form correctly to overcome most of the common accessibility and usability issues. Basic issues such as the correct practice for use of labels, error messages, required fields and help text are reviewed and discussed with clarity here.   This is an area you might think you know backwards, however it’s always worth a review on these matters.

Now we have the structure of the forms it’s time to use some CSS to style the final forms. Fancy Form Design walks you through the issues of using various resets and the various ways form elements render in different browsers (I’m looking at you IE) and ways to overcome them. I didn’t expect to find anything new in this section, and I didn’t, still your mileage may vary on this one.

The final chapter is on enhancing your forms beyond the stylised CSS/HTML layout with the help of jQuery.

This is the section I enjoyed the most in this book. It looked in detail at select menu, radio and checkbox styling as well as conditional question displays, date selectors, password strength indicators and a basic auto-complete. All this is presented in an easy to follow manner, which makes implementing these enhancements progressively on your forms, with jQuery, really easy. There is even a reminder about input validation, doing it on the client and server sides.

Only the downside, I personally think the last section of the form enhancement was a bit to short. I could have done with another 10-20 pages of additional enhancements to the case study in question. A little more detail on the  jQuery level would have been good too  (small birdie tells me watch for a Sitepoint jQuery Book very soon).

Finally – the last word

Overall it’s good book, entertaining, well written, not overly long, full of immediately practical examples that anyone familiar with form design and development can use.  It’s good to see more of these micro topic books being written than the large 500 page tomes of yesterday.

Side note: why have I been reviewing lots of Sitepoint books of late, well maybe it’s something to do with their range of books.

It’s one of those wet August days in Perth when the sunny and rain just can’t make up their mind who really wants to be the dominate partner.   In a similar way a web design business can wrestle with a similar issue.   Do you use someone else’s pre-built templates  or do you roll your own designs.

Between User Experience and Information Architecture gigs I usually squeeze in a little standard front end web site development.  Over the  years I have rolled my own, designing each website from scratch to the final interactive site.  I have prided myself in this production of  a higher quality result that my clients where looking for.   Something unique that they knew was a once off.

However in the last year or so I have been thinking, is that really what people want.  After all it’s just web design, its not like we are producing a fine arts masterpiece or the like.  It’s commercial throwaway pixels.   To this end I have been experimenting with using pre-built  templates for some of my clients.   Yes I admit it, I have strayed.   Now the interesting thing is there are a number of benefits and pitfalls with using these templates:

Benefits

1. It’s About Profit.

   From a pure business view you really are there to maximise profit.   It’s a cold hard fact that no one in the industry will talk about.   As a creative you are too often concerned with the technical aspect of the design, from the user experience to the beauty of the final  product. From a project management view, it’s about minimum hours for maximum profit.   If you can turn around a design for a client in a few hours and charge out for 5 times that amount, then that is a good thing.  Using pre-built templates allows you to do this very easily.

2. Platform is not at Issue

   These days the professional pre-built templates  often come in a variety  of different platforms from Wordpress, Joolma, Drupal, various e commerce systems and even basic HTML layouts.   So there really is no excuse to be restricted by the template and the platform.

3. A Refreshing Change

   Having someone else outside of your usual creatives design a site allows for a fresh approach to a design view point, this can often win a client over with an alternative design outside your usual stable of concepts.

4. Save Time

   Just like you are saving money on using a professional template, you are also saving time to a degree (see below for clarification), as you at least have a prepackaged starting point.  You can also often present to the client a range of design concept proofs very quickly.

5. New View, New techniques

   You are not just getting a new design, you are being exposed to other people’s techniques in terms of CSS and HTML.  Good or bad, it’s a different view point.   Sometime we just need that as we can all get very stale with our own code or that of the other freelancers we tend to work with.

Disadvantages

1. Don’t Assume it’s Good

   The templates may look very stylish from the outside, design wise.  However I have found that they are often either the bare minimum of code to express the design or a mish-mash of tag soup.  There seems at best to be a distinct lack of professional code.  Maybe I’m just being to hard on my fellow web professionals, but the terms like web standards, the best practice seem to a very loose and fast application in the world of professional template production.

2. Completeness is a Dirty Word

   A well designed template will have been tested against a suite of data types and scenarios that will allow for a large degree of flexibility while still maintaining the interface look and feel.   That’s what you would expect.  Be prepared to get something that is a more of half arsed attempt at this.   Again it’s going to mean that you have to drop into the code and fix the lack of the completeness.

3. Burning Time for Perfection

   I am a perfectionist, I’ll give no quarter on that front, small details in a design tend to  drive me crazy.   I have a habit of correcting bad code or imperfect designs.  In a good way using a template does force you to stop fussing over minor points of the design.   However  in some cases you really need to change the methods used in the code so that it fits into your workflow and makes it easier to maintain in the future.  This is going to cost, sometimes beyond the savings that can be made using templates.   In reality it comes down to the longevity of the client and what future modifications they may require,

4. Bad Techniques

   Don’t expect  all the techniques in use to be good or well thought out before they where implemented.   This is especially true for CSS.  I have often found that the hacks to implement the intended design  (especially  for Internet Explorer) can be an little dubious at best.  Overall the techniques just seem to lack the experience of a good web designer.  I guess in a way I’m projecting my own skills.   Still it’s just little things like  a good CSS layout structures, correct use if inheritance, and naming techniques that really do show how much experience author has.

5. Cost Effective,  Maybe

   It’s just amazing how you are working on a very strict budget with a template design and suddenly the client wants something simple like a colour change  that suddenly means  a template rework.   This is where if it was your design it would be more cost effective to make the change in design direction.  However with a template, that is not the case, you are often working with photoshop files that have had masking and effects layers rendered, so simple things like a slight colour change can suddenly go from a few minutes work to an hour or so of working the design.

After all this what’s the main things I’ve take away from all this are –  In an industry where the business dollar talks, and with the latest software you can turn around a photoshop design into an interactive web site in about 20-30 minutes by using table layouts.   Is there still a place for  unique designs that are hand coded.   I frankly would  sadly say for the average client, no.   The ways of the craftsman are disappearing just as hand made furniture and cars have done in the past.

Maybe it’s time to go design some templates.

Sometimes you come across something that you just have to share.   The other day I got the chance to go back in time.  Back in the past, to feel and  to see something of raw beauty that I personally have not experienced before.

Im talking about  the work that I found in an exercise book and the craftsmanship in some Victorian era books.

The work in the school exercise book was lovely completed by a middle class Irish 10 year old, under English rule at the time.  Those 03 dates on this work are not from 2002, but 1902, all the way back to the Edwardian era.

Look at the workmanship, the beauty in the character formation.   The level of care.  Looking through this simple school book, one can see into an era that was a lot slower. Where the time was taken to learn a skill, to master it.  Where the time was taken to do things right.  Please remember these are not preseved works, they have had no special care, so they have bled out in places, but still you can see the degree of care taken.   There is just something raw and untamed in these works, something that the digital world can’t produce.

To often we are locked in our digital design words, away from the feel of paper, the smell of ink, the texture of the canvas and the grease of the paint.  Maybe it’s time as designers from time to time we re-found this old school world of the analogue

Draft, Draft and Draft Again

However you may think that this was the first draft the student did in these books.   Not so I also have access to the draft workbook also, in which everything is drafted in pencil.   This just goes to show that even in an Edwardian era things have a parallel to present day.

It seems sometimes that we forget that the best way to get close to perfection is draft the work, over and over.  To this day that still holds true, even if we do tend to forget it, in our rush, rush disposable world of pixels and images that are a flicker of the eye.

For the Beauty of Old Books.

Now that we have gazed over this typical school work of the 1900’s lets roll it back with a common Victorian era  book.  If you have opened a book of this era, you will totally understand what I’m talking about, they are amazing, an artwork in themselves. The quality, even in just like the type setting, the typeface, the marbling, the binding is to behold.   Things that I love about these old books is the wood carving or plate etching artwork that  is contained within.  The level of detail is just amazing considering the handcraft process on how the books on this era where constructed.

I know some of my readers are going to say, so what, this is just a 120 year old book.  Fine yes it’s not that old in the scheme of things, but for Australia it is old, very old, it’s all relative, see we are a young country.  Still  you can turn your  nose up at it, but for me it’s a doorway to a world of wonder of fine forgotten craftsmanship.

So what things from the past inspire you, what old “design” treasures do you love to look over?

Rating:

4

If you have read as many web design books as I have you find that they fall into basically two categories:

1. The ones in which the author waxes on about how wonderful they are at design, show off page after page of their own portfolio. The entire book becomes a publicity fest.
2. Then there is the type of book that is presented in a level headed manner, it is a great reference of the step by step process that web designers go through to product a web site.

Well Sexy Web Design by Elliot Jay Stocks is the latter, a well balanced guide that takes you through a clean conversation on how to create that next awesome web site.

The thing that I really like about this book is that it is to the point, it’s not overly weighty on the design theory, as it assumes you already have some of that skill locked away already. However  this book would still be ideal for a beginning designer.

Was it personally useful for me, well I’ll be honest, no it wasn’t. While I was reading this book I was just ticking off the points made one by one, noting that in reality there was nothing that I hadn’t already gained from experience. Now I have been doing this a long time, so I do get this a lot.  But it is good to know that Elliot in mu mind has covered off all the aspects of web design.

The book is divided into 6 chapters.

1. Overview of the design process, in which the design goals of an interface and the overall process are discussed.
2. Design Research, this chapter was so welcome, explaining why the brief is important, moving onto the  design inspirational process.
3. Site Structure, being involved with information architecture, I’m going to have a little bit of a bias here. It’s nice to see the  consideration of this design element before jumping into the high resolution design.
4. Navigation and Interaction, again I’m bias here, Elliot runs through a whistle stop tour of the common web interactive elements, and what works where and when.
5. Aesthetics, in this solid chapter Elliot looks at the usual design techniques, the grid, layout types (fixed, fluid, flexible, etc), color, mood boards, imagery types, typography  and the impact of emotion on the overall user experience.  In  a way this book is well worth its cost for  this chapter alone.
6. Final wrap is with the Deliverables,  so now you have that sexy design, how do you organise your Photoshop layers,  deliver that mockup, slice the design quickly and write that style guide, well in this chapter Elliot tells us how.

I have yet to read the perfect book. This one had a few things that annoyed me,  there was one instance where I thought the layout of the pages could have been executed in a different manor.  But overall that was a minor point.  Nothing that I would discount the book for.

Sexy Web Design is by in large a good reference book.

Full of little hints and tips that will help  all but crusty old designers like me.  And even then if you have had your eye off the ball  for an instant,  I bet you will still get something out of this book.

Now if you are looking for a Photoshop guide or a CSS design book, this is not for you, this is about design!

So if  you have a design flare, and need to know how to design web sites then this is the book for you.

Well Internet Explorer 8 is out of Beta and has finally been released.   It didn’t meet the IE8 in 2008 proclamation that some where betting on.  But no matter at least it is here, better late than never, eh.

Yes it’s faster meaner, clean and generally  a better browser than IE7.   There is lots of fancy stuff I can’t use from a design view as other browsers don’t support it, but innovation is still good.  As a User Experience designer, it’s a nicer browser to work with.  It lines up and supports most of the standards, mind you I do suspect it was written to pass Acid 2 specifically and not o be complaint with all of the upcoming W3C guidelines.

You would suppose now we have IE8, all will be forgiven, the pain of IE6 will be swept away,  everything is going to be sweet and rosy.  Not more design pain, not more impossible CSS  with IE6, no more hacks, just a perfect world of browsers, IE8, Safari, FireFox and Opera.  I can here the bird singing now, as I lazy in this field of cool grass.

IE6  will slowly die off as the corporates move to the new browser leaving IE6 behind, Microsoft is even helping with a conversion guide.   We can even have pages in IE8 look like we are using IE7, with the IE8 compatibility mode. Perfect.  So all is right as Ben Buchanan says we can make 2009  the end of IE6.

It’s Not the Browser

But no this is not to be. We need to look at the big picture folks.  Sadly IE 8 wants to be the IE6 killer, but like its version 7 brother, but it’s still born.  No trumpets or fanfares for IE8.   The problem goes a  lot deeper than the browser.

It’s an operating system issue.

Now let me explain, medium to small business usually upgrade  their systems via a somewhat adhoc process.  With a little testing to ensure the upgrade is going to work,  they then roll it out across the organisation. This means that these smaller organisations can have the lastest browser etc without any hassle.

However larger corporates, where most of the IE6 remaining install base is, will take their time. These guys are very regimented, they work with Standard Operating Environments (SOE), Everything is tested, and tested again to reduce having a support disaster.  In some cases up to one year of testing can occur,with selective users, using the latest operating systems and common use desktop and intranet software.

As we know on the 6th day (IE6) Microsoft rested, and rested and rested.   Well they also rested with Windows 2000.  This resulted with a large corporate uptake of Windows 2000.  Sadly  the most recent browser that operates with Windows 2000 is IE6.  A lot of corporates are using Windows 2000 still, hence they are locked into IE6 , like it or not.   They just don’t have an alternative Microsoft browser that is going to allow them to move forward without changing the operating system.

What Next?

So if we want to help kill off IE6 we really need corporates to consider moving to Windows 7, skipping XP and Vista and as expected with a new SOE there will be the new browser.   Now given the time frame and the conservative nature of these organisations, I can’t see them conducting a mass roll out until early 2010.  Now support for Windows 2000 is due to die in 2010.   So this is a win win for the corporates.

Depending on the Microsoft production cycle that browser in the corporate SOE  may be Internet Explorer 9.

It’s all a numbers game, personally I would like to see IE6 disappear below 2% on my clients browser statistics tomorrow.   That would make me very happy, but as a realist I just know I’m going to be cursing IE6 for a while to come.  Not that the old girl is getting any special treatment these days.

Still I hope that I’m wrong.  What do you think is IE6 now doomed because of IE8?

I was having a discussion the other day with some fellow web designer friends on the skills that you required to be stay in this field long term.

Sure we all agreed you need to at least have the core design skills, understanding of layout, colour theory, typography and the usual tricks of the trade. The platform that you used to deliver your designs was immaterial, be that Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks or the like it didn’t really matter, the end result was what was important. That’s a given.

To succeed really well in this field, we also agreed you really need to be able to code in HTML and CSS, and I don’t mean a little bit, but really well and understand the rendering issues with the different browsers on the market at the time, or at least be able to do this.

Something More

Now that was all very well and good for the situation where you are working in a organisation where you only have one role in the production of a web site, that being the design of the user interface visuals.

But what happens if you are working for a smaller firm or are a freelancer. Suddenly you may from time to time take on roles or be asked questions on topics that are frankly totally outside of your abilities. After all you just do the “design” right. Do you just wing it and hope for the best?

If you look at the progression of the web industry until recently it has focused on people with specialised skills. But it has also had a wave effect of supplementary skill flow on over the years.

In the old specialisation days you would be just doing the photoshop files, the design. However slowly over time you are suddenly doing the HTML and CSS. Then issues such as usability and accessibility are being brought up, and the finger is being pointing at you as it is your “design”. Now the wave is moving again, as Cameron Adams points out in his interview with Miles Burke, Designers are being asked to just add a little ajaxian type features to sites. Suddenly you need to know JavaScript as well. But you scream thats a developer thing. Sorry no, not anymore.

Things are Changing

If you haven’t noticed it’s a trend, that has been happening for while, people are saying, and rightly too, that designers with just design skills in a few years, no matter how kick arse their designs are going to be a dinosaur of the past in the web industry.

Now I’m not talking about becoming a gun with all these skills and moving away from your love of design. Far from it, but from a career view it does pay to stretch one’s self a little, especially in areas you are not familiar with such as:

1. Information Architecture


   Sure if the site is simple you can get away with not doing this, but if there is a good deal of content, you really are going to have to consider the findability of the information. The field of Information Architecture has number of very easy to use techniques that any designer can apply. 


2. General User Experience 


   I’m often surprised the number of designers that don’t consider a few simple things in the area of user experience. There are again a few basic skills and techniques you can learn in this area that will make your designs a little more user focused, which is a good thing.


3. User Testing


   Now I don’t expect every designer to become a professional in this area. However even just conducting a few user tests with real users will again change the way you do things and think about design forever. Now be warned this really is a skill you need to sit down and learn. It’s really not something you can just pick up run with. 


4. Javascript 



   We all know that we are being asked to add just a few “tricks” to the web site interfaces we build to make them easier to use, Most of the time this involves the use of Javascipt. Maybe it’s time you learn this language and the correct way to use it, or at least one of the many frameworks, like jQuery.


5. Interactive Interface Design

   Sure I know this, you say. But do you really. Are you totally across all the best interface design methods and techniques in an ajaxian, RIA environment. Or are you just churning out the same old stuff. Be honest, we all get stuck in a rut on this one from time to time. Maybe time to have a look at this area.


6. Accessibility

   Are your designs that accessible. Do you think about accessibility when you are designing. Are you really ready for WCAG 2 or ARIA. 


7. Usability



   So you can design fantastic web sites, but how usable are they. Sure you and your team can use them, but can the public, can the target audience. Do you really have a handle on usability throughout the design process or is just something you kind of tack on the end of the design process or leave for the developers. 


8. Backend Coding

   I’m not suggesting you become a guru on Ruby on Rails or Cold Fusion or even PHP, but maybe you should at least understand a little what those blocks of code in those files on the server are doing. I personally went down this road for about 5 years doing part-time coding in Cold Fusion and a little PHP. Can’t say I’m a gun at them. But at least I can read it and understand it.


9. Mobile Device Design



   Stop ignoring it. It’s not going to go away, you have to start looking at mobile phone design today. Yes right now. If you don’t the wave of opportunity of these cheap web communication devices will be gone. And you will be the design dinosaur.

Harsh reality check, maybe. I know it would be cool to just be able to just do design forever, that would be sweet, eh; but frankly thats not going to happen. Time to refresh those skills I think.

Now once you have gained some new skills, please remember you are still not going to be as good as the specialist doing it day in day out. But hey then they aren’t going to be a gun designer like you either. So if in doubt ask a colleague who is focused on that aspect, don’t try and wing it, that’s for cowboys, you may even learn something new.